Town Square

Top five trends of 2012

Original post made
on Jan 2, 2013

If there is one trend that has shaped Palo Alto's most fervent debates of 2012 it's the city's push to encourage dense development near major transit stations -- namely, downtown and near California Avenue.

Posted by 355 Lytton
a resident of Downtown North
on Jan 2, 2013 at 11:31 am

Is the Lytton Gateway building on Alma St & Lytton Ave really going to give the Chamber of Commerce reduced rent on the first floor because it is supposed to be nonprofit?
Pat Burt and Greg Scharff voted for that. I hope the Chamber has more sense now that AT&T is on its board. It could be a Public Relations disaster.

Posted by T. Peak
a resident of Downtown North
on Jan 2, 2013 at 11:50 am

Palo Alto residents shouldn't buy the city's hype about "transit oriented development". Large developments are just a give away to developers and a disaster for residents. From an environmental perspective, developments should be limited to dense urban centers. We have two, San Francisco and San Jose. Developers don't care about the environment or transit, they want to maximize their property value, make as much money as possible and are fine with destroying the character of smaller cities along the peninsula. 2013 will be the year to stop massive developments in Palo Alto or the quality of the city services, schools, parks and home ownership will continue to decline.

somewhat premature. Presumably this is based on the $10M bridge over 101 that may be constructed in 3 or 4 years. That bridge is only a very small part of the incentives to use your bicycle in Palo Alto.

As an avid bicyclist, I find that the biggest obstacle to using the bicycle instead of a car for shopping is the lack of decent bicycle stands that allow locking with strong U-shaped locks (instead of relatively weak and inconvenient cable locks).

The best bike stands have a tray for a wide front tire and an arm with a loop coming up at about a 60 degree angle, so the lock can go through the loop and the bicycle frame.

These need to be installed throughout all the commercial areas of the city. Even 1000 of them would cost only a tiny fraction of the bridge, and would have a much bigger effect on bike ridership in Palo Alto.